Zone1 I've been an atheist for 60 years and have never once been tempted to believe in any god

[sealybobo]

Again, your rebuttal fails to do the main thing associated with a rebuttal. It fails to rebut what I said.

Someone reminded me about the Salem Witch Trials. Oh yea, it was Trump claiming the cases agains him are all witch hunts. Anyways, it got me thinking. Who burned witches in Salem? It was Christians. Let's just be honest about that. So back in 1700, Christians were bat shit crazy and ignorant. These are our ancestors. These nuts are the same idiots who believed the church when it said 1700 years ago the Jesus story happened. So are we supposed to believe the people who burned non believers as witches? I don't buy the Jesus story, for one reason, because it was passed down to us from these

The episode is one of colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It was not unique, but a colonial manifestation of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period, which took the lives of tens of thousands, mainly in Protestant Europe and the Americas.

This is who is telling us to believe the stories in the bible? Fuck that!

Do you know this dark age of Christianity is why Joseph Smith started the Mormon church? God told him the original Christianity had lost it's way and no longer had the authority or connection to God. It was lost in the dark ages of the Pope. I see why that makes sense to so many people who want to believe but see Christianity for the con it is.

 

[sealybobo]

When I was 10 years old, we had a dog named Silver. A sealyham - sort of a largish Westie. He had been struck by a car when I was much younger and that had left him blind in one eye. We adapted. He adapted. But whenever he entered an unfamiliar space (the furniture moved, for instance) he would collide with things. I felt bad for him. Like most children my age I believed what I was told was the truth by my parents and the church they took me to. So I prayed as fervently and selflessly as I could manage that God would restore his vision. But, as would happen in any bad movie, his poor vision led Silver to wandering out in front of another car where he suffered another concussion which left him completely blind. Now all dogs go to heaven because all dogs are innocent. Every non-human form of life is innocent of the many sins the Bible spells out. Initially, I was angry. How could God cause my innocent dog to suffer, regardless of his motive or intent? The standard "mysterious ways" line didn't help at all. What did help was the realization that the best explanation was not that god was mysterious or unknowable, but that he simply wasn't there. The existence of the god described by the Bible and by our preacher and the believers I would talk with was simply not possible; not only because it violated all the laws of nature but because absolutely no evidence I could find supported the idea. Every thing I could learn about the world and how it worked refuted the idea of a caring, personal god who had created miraculous humans and a miraculous Earth to be their home and was everpresent, watching over us and, on proper supplication, violating the laws that he himself had set in place - if he felt like it.

As the years went by I simply became more and more convinced that there is a great deal about the working of the universe we do not yet know, but the basics - the principal of uniformitarianism, holds, everywhere and everywhen. Nothing is supernatural. No will directs or inspires the stream of events taking place over the passage of time. Only physics.

What signs or signals should I have caught that might have lured me back to my childhood faith? And how might my life have been different had I done so? I have lots of friends and I'm pretty sure most of them think I'm a nice guy. I buy fully and heartily into the Golden Rule. I believe it to be the sole basis of human civilization. How do you think my complete lack of divine faith hurt me? Will your god throw into a lake of fire because I led a good life but failed to do him obeisance? That is, of course, precisely what scriptures tells us. Why would ANY of you believe, much less WORSHIP such a god? He seems a monster. Would anyone care to correct me?

In the early modern period, from about 1400 to 1775, about 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and British America.[1] Between 40,000 and 60,000[2][3] were executed. The witch-hunts were particularly severe in parts of the Holy Roman Empire.

Holy Roman Emperor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Nah, they didn't invent religion to control the masses

was the ruler and head of state of the Holy Roman Empire. The title was held in conjunction with the title of king of Italy (Rex Italiae) from the 8th to the 16th century, and, almost without interruption, with the title of king of Germany (Rex Teutonicorum, lit. "King of the Teutons") throughout the 12th to 18th centuries.[2]

The Holy Roman Emperor title provided the highest prestige among medieval Roman Catholic monarchs, because the empire was considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only successor of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period.

Yes, this most definitely is when Mormons are referring to. When Christianity lost it's authority or connection to God. And God told Joseph Smith to start a new church called Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Brilliant.

 

[Crick]

Believe what you need, I have no problem with you not believing in a God, it’s all good by me.

The antiquity and near universality of the Golden Rule is not my belief, it is a fact. I'm glad it's all good with you because I find that fact very reassuring.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

By baselessly accusing me of having abused my dog? Are you proud of yourself?

I am accusing you of using your dog's disability to rail against God instead of doing all you can to help your dog.
In fact, you use all kinds of silliness to "prove" there is no God. An eagle fed a dead cat to eaglets in the nest. If there was a God..... what? Eaglets wouldn't need to eat? This is what you hang your hat on.

Go. Be an atheist. Just stop supporting your atheism with nonsense.

If there was really a God, no one would sicken or die. In fact, no one would grow old. Lions would not kill gazelles to live. If there was a God no one would need to eat at all. There would be no storms. No earthquakes, avalanches, tsunamis or floods.

If there really was a God, a divine concierge devoted to our every whim, no one would ever pray because everything would be so perfect.

 

[Crick]

In the early modern period, from about 1400 to 1775, about 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and British America.[1] Between 40,000 and 60,000[2][3] were executed. The witch-hunts were particularly severe in parts of the Holy Roman Empire.

Holy Roman Emperor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Nah, they didn't invent religion to control the masses

was the ruler and head of state of the Holy Roman Empire. The title was held in conjunction with the title of king of Italy (Rex Italiae) from the 8th to the 16th century, and, almost without interruption, with the title of king of Germany (Rex Teutonicorum, lit. "King of the Teutons") throughout the 12th to 18th centuries.[2]

The Holy Roman Emperor title provided the highest prestige among medieval Roman Catholic monarchs, because the empire was considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only successor of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period.

Yes, this most definitely is when Mormons are referring to. When Christianity lost it's authority or connection to God. And God told Joseph Smith to start a new church called Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Brilliant.

Where is this coming from?

 

[Frankenstein]

Why is it you think this thread or forum is yours?

Tell you what if you want a members only forum go create one and you can have your little echo chamber

As you continue to tell everyone that you don't believe. Okay move on and stop disparaging those who do where is you liberal tolerance at?

 

[Frankenstein]

TRANSLATION: I don't care about the truth. I am just angry at this fellow for having embarrassed me and want to hurt him back.

You embarrassed me by plagiarizing someone else's writing?

 

[sealybobo]

Where is this coming from?

I'm just saying those are the people who told us to believe the bible. Or who wrote it. What's fiction and what's fantasy.

I agree with the OP. I remember my aunt telling me the creation story and about Jesus christ and her story brought up more questions than it answered. I smelled bullshit. Even though I went to church and did the cross when everyone else did, I knew it was bullshit.

I love it when they say "oh then you didn't read the bible" I did. Boring AF. I also read other things, like this sick history of Christianity. This history Christians like to forget about. But this is their history. These sick fucking rulers may have very well invented it.

The New Testament is known as a collection of writings by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, and Jude. But it's not as simple as that. There is much debate among scholars about the authorship of some of these writings. This means that traditional attributions are not universally accepted.

The easy answer is that the canonical books of the Christian Bible were enumerated and approved by various councils, synods, and popes of the Catholic Church, beginning with the Council of Rome in 382 A.D.

400 years after the fact.

 

[Crick]

I am accusing you of using your dog's disability to rail against God instead of doing all you can to help your dog.

That, I'm afraid, is a lie. You accused me of not helping my dog and of sacrificing my dog; charges for which ZERO evidence exists. They don't even make sense. That you felt justified to make such accusations without actual cause tells us that another cause must exist driving your response and within the limited scope of our engagement, the possible causes are few.

Why didn't you help your dog? Did you need to rail against God so much that you sacrificed your dog?​

The reason you are making these unfounded claims is that you don't like what I've said about you and your beliefs. I would say that it was I who struck a nerve of yours. You are attempting to punish me for the views I hold and the responses I have made to your comments.

In fact, you use all kinds of silliness to "prove" there is no God. An eagle fed a dead cat to eaglets in the nest. If there was a God..... what? Eaglets wouldn't need to eat? This is what you hang your hat on.

The existence of carnivorous predators has been presented as an argument against the existence of a caring god. Why not all herbivores? You seem to have thought about this. Why don't we have all herbivores. They were first.

Go. Be an atheist. Just stop supporting your atheism with nonsense.

My arguments seem to have been sensible enough that the upset it caused you has led you to cast away your honesty and flail out at me in pathetic desperation. And I have to say that the day I take direction from someone like you is the day I just give it all up.

If there was really a God, no one would sicken or die.

Who are you to dictate the choices of a god?

In fact, no one would grow old. Lions would not kill gazelles to live. If there was a God no one would need to eat at all. There would be no storms. No earthquakes, avalanches, tsunamis or floods.

If there really was a God, a divine concierge devoted to our every whim, no one would ever pray because everything would be so perfect.

If there was a god I guess we'd all get the lastest PS5, eh. Ooh, wouldn't that be sick!

 

[Crick]

You embarrassed me by plagiarizing someone else's writing?

A charge of plagiarism without even a hint of the actual source for the suspect text is as obvious a manufactured bit of petty libel as could be found.

Would you like to review our earlier interactions? I think I can identify what might have drawn your ire.

 

[zaangalewa]

Crick
-----
Hawking spoke more plainly about his thoughts on God in an interview with Spanish publication El Mundo.

“Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation,” he said. “What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”
-----
source: Stephen Hawking's Thoughts on Atheism, God and Death

 

[Crick]

Crick
-----
Hawking spoke more plainly about his thoughts on God in an interview with Spanish publication El Mundo.

“Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation,” he said. “What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”
-----
source: Stephen Hawking's Thoughts on Atheism, God and Death

Here by the way the last favorite song from the atheist Stephen Hawking a short time before he died - whose atheism I always respected because he had a reason to be angry with the universe and its creation. Nevertheless I heard Stephen Hawking enjoyed life.

You should take back one before presenting another.

 

[Meister]

After 54 pages, this thread has lost its way in a zone1 sub forum, closed